“I promised not to hurt you any more, my friend, and I am a man of my word.  But I have long admired your hair and beard.  You see I was in Saint Mark’s when you went there to meet the glass-maker’s daughter, and I have seen you at other times.  I should be sorry never to see such a beautiful beard again, so I mean to take it with me, and if you will keep quiet, I shall really not hurt you.”

Thereupon he produced from his doublet a bright pair of shears, and knelt down by the wretched man’s head.  Contarini twisted himself as be might and tried instinctively to draw his head away.

“I have heard that pirates sometimes accidentally cut off a prisoner’s ear,” said Aristarchi.  “If you will not move, I am quite sure that I shall not be so awkward as to do that.”

Contarini now lay motionless, and Aristarchi went to work.  With the utmost neatness he cropped off the silky hair, so close to Jacopo’s skull that it almost looked as if it had been shaved with a razor.  In the same way he clipped the splendid beard away, and even the brown eyebrows, till there was not a hair left on Contarini’s head or face.  Then he contemplated his work, and laughed at the weak jaw and the womanish mouth.

“You look like an ugly woman in man’s clothes,” he said, by way of consoling his victim.

He rose now, for he feared lest Contarini’s friends might break open the door downstairs.  He shouldered the heavy bundle with ease, set his blue cap on the back of his head and bade Arisa go with him.  She had her mantle ready, but she could not resist casting delighted glances at her late owner’s face.  Before going, she knelt down one moment by his side, and inclined her face to his, with a very loving gaze.  Lower and lower she bent, as if she would give him a parting kiss, till Aristarchi uttered an exclamation.  Then she laughed cruelly, and with the back of her hand struck the lips that had so often touched her own.

A few moments later Aristarchi had placed her in his boat, the heavy bundle of spoils lay at her feet, and the craft shot swiftly from the door of the house of the Agnus Dei.  For Michael Pandos, the mate, had been waiting under the window, and a stroke of the oars brought him to the steps.

In the closed room where the friends were playing dice, there began to be some astonishment at the time needed by Jacopo to replenish his purse.  When more than half an hour had passed one pair stopped playing, and then another, until they were all listening for some sound in the silent house.  The perfect stillness had something alarming in it, and none of them fully trusted Contarini.

“I think,” said Venier with all his habitual indolence, “that it is time to ascertain the colour of the lady’s hair.  Can you break the lock?”

He spoke to Foscari, who nodded and went to the door with two or three others.  In a few seconds it flew open before their combined attack, and they almost lost their balance as they staggered out into the dark hall.  The rest brought lights and they all began to go up the stairs together.  The first to enter the room was Foscari.  Venier, always indifferent, was among the last.